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What Does Hyperinflation Look Like?
Sweeping up pengo banknotes. Hungary, 1946.
100 Billion Dollars buys eggs in Zimbabwe.
500 Billion Dinar note from Yugoslavia.
Burning marks as fuel to keep warm. Germany, 1913.
As I've previously noted, hyperinflationists are too focused on Weimar Germany:
You've heard how bad things were in the Weimar Republic, when people would rush straight to stores to buy food after receiving a pay check because their money would buy much less the next day.
But it turns out that Germany's hyperinflation in 1923 was nothing compared to that experienced by Hungary, Zimbabwe and Yugoslavia.
In a new paper published by the Cato Institute, economics professor Steve Hanke lists the all-time worst episodes of hyperinflation:
Note that Hungary's daily inflation rate was ten times greater than that in Weimar Germany, and prices doubled almost six times faster in Hungary than in the Weimar Republic.
Life in Weimar Germany was extremely difficult. But Hungary in 1946 was a lot worse.
Note: While the commonly accepted explanation for hyperinflation is government printing too much money, Ellen Brown argues that the real explanation is a concerted attack on a country's currency by foreign speculators and/or foreign governments.
Postscript: This post is not implying that I think we'll necessarily get hyperinflation. It is only trying to put historical cases of hyperinflation in context.
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The widespread adoption of plastic money and electronic payments in the contemporary US would probably make hyperinflation look quite different: no wheelbarrows of cash, except maybe for poorer people who can't get access to plastic. You'd still have the weekly or monthly stampede of workers blowing their paychecks on groceries as soon as they get their hands on them, but I'd expect a large proportion of people would order from Amazon rather than racing to Wal-Mart. One thing that will probably carry over from the more recent Latin American experiences of hyperinflation is that the poor will have the worst of it.
We already are getting the worst of it, your disabled vets and SS retired/disabled have not had a COLA increase since the one announced in 2008. But at least now I don't have to go rent a video for entertainment, I just go to the meat department in Safeway and fondly reminisce about the time I could afford meat.
I wouldnt say you are wrong, because it is a very likely possibility. But I think that after the first truck was robbed, at gunpoint, people who were smart enough, if we could say that with the above situation, would revert to the herd mentality, not becuase they want to but because they would have no other choice.
The possibilities seem endless and until it gets here we can only speculate. The one I will say is that it wouldnt be a bad idea to get things together now, instead of waiting until the last minute and going at it with the herd.
C/O?
After the first truck was robbed.... the truck drivers got smart and went home to their families and those dependent on trucked-in food will see troops delivering food or get very hungry in four days. We all need to have a good supply of essentials on hand as the human link in the delivery supply chain is the weakest link.
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Why do you think plastic has become so prevalent?????????? You can't burn them to keep warm.................at least not during a really cold night............................and they don't say "Federal Reserve Note" on them, just some bank............................
Makes the historic pictures of hyperinflation much less interesting...............
I thought it was merely so TPTB could better track and tax the flows of money in the economy, but you have made me see the light ... it is really yet another way they can control me, by limiting my choices of heating fuel to things like their subsidised corn.
USA 2015...?
A preview of hyperinflation. Pay attention to that "people quickly turned into animals" part of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIVVL43qPXY
That's humorous. I had always thought that humans were animals (genus homo sapiens). It makes sense that they'd behave like animals. Shame on those who would think otherwise.
Even animals can organize and sustain under harsh conditions.
The picture of the guy sweeping up currency doesn't give me the impression that the human animals were savaging eachother during a currency collapse. Life goes on...
They're WHITE! It's always the same but taboo to talk about. Brown/blacks are true animals...whites are usually civilized. You see it every day...yet you deny it's truth? If the SHTF...where do you think the worst places to be will be? Where they are now...where they've ALWAYS been...where the blacks/browns are!
White Europeans took over the planet...and then, after WWII for some reason...stopped...and started giving it all back. I'd sure like to know why. Maybe the conquest was better than the prize? Hindsight says we should have kept going...
Junking you because what you are saying is racist and not correct. Don't get me wrong, I'm not moving to an urban ghetto in anticipation of great things happening there during the collapse. But some rural areas full of dark-skinned people will not be bad if/when the collapse comes, and there are plenty of trashy white areas, too.
So that's why I junked you.
You have no clue what white is, let alone genus homo sapien.
Essentially, we have no inflation in the USA, less than 2%, unless you happen to be one of those people who eat food, or drive in cars.
Go Bernanke!!